had been done, is now unnecessary after the preaching of the Gospel." t

But again, we are overwhelmed with an abundance of miracles, when we come to the times of Gregory the Great. I think that two circumstances will go some way to remove the difficulty: first, that he (Gregory) almost invariably quotes the testimony of others; and, secondly, that he was firmly convinced that CHRIST's Second Coming was at hand, and therefore predisposed to interpret every marvellous and unaccountable incident as a special harbinger and token of His Advent. Thus he attempts to account for the strange stories about Purgatory, which were become so rife, and which he acknowledges to have been unknown previously. "Why is it, I pray you," asks Peter his Deacon, "that in these last times so many facts about souls are evident, which before were hidden; in such wise that the world to come seems to introduce itself to us by open revelations and proofs?" "So it is," replies Gregory; "for so far as the present world approaches to the faith, the future world is now touched and disclosed by clearer signs. For since in this world we by no means see our mutual thoughts, but in the other we behold our hearts alternately, what should I call this world but Night, and the future Day? But as when before sunrise darkness is somehow intermingled with light, until the relics of departing night be changed into the perfect light of succeeding day: so the end of this world is already being blended with the beginning of the future world, and the very darkness of its remains already reflects a certain mixture of things spiritual. And we now behold many things which are of that world, but do not yet know them perfectly; because we see them as if before sunrise in a twilight of the mind." "

It is urged as a rule, "That famous miracles were to be suspected for lying wonders, unless they had some special use or extraordinary end." But this can hardly be safe; for thereby we constitute ourselves the judges of the 'special use'

t Fabricius, Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti, De Scriptis Christo tributis, Tom. I. p. 308.

"S. Gregor. Magni Dialog. Lib. iv. cap. 41.

938.

V

Jackson, Works, Vol. I. p.

or 'extraordinary end,' as though we were admitted into the secret cabinet of Providence and could penetrate the hidden springs of Divine action. It may well be that miracles are sometimes wrought to convince those who are blind to the usual witnesses of Providence, that the Most High "doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou?" A safer rule will be found in the directly benevolent character which belongs in general to genuine Christian miracles. This is noticed by the Author of the Recognitions of S. Clement: "He who is from the Evil One, the signs which he doeth profit no one; but those which the good man doeth profit men. For tell me I pray you, what avails it to show statues walking? for dogs. in brass or stone to bark? mountains to leap? to fly through the air? and other things like these which ye say Simon (Magus) did? But those which are from the Good are wrought to the saving of men ; as are those which our LORD did, Who made the blind to see, the deaf to hear; raised the feeble and halt; put to flight diseases and devils; made the dead to rise again." So Origen challenges comparison between the miracles of CHRIST and the marvels attributed to Aristeas of Proconnesus, and adds; "See, if from the result and from those that are benefited to correction of manners and piety towards GOD you have not to allow that the things narrated of JESUS came not to pass without GOD; but not so what is told of Aristeas of Proconnesus." We may note that Miracles are mostly intelligible modifications of matter, such as a reverent intellect may explain so far as to reconcile them with the works of the Creator in the natural order of things. He that bade the waters of the Red Sea to stand on an heap congealeth water into seas of ice. He who walked on the waves of the Sea of Galilee now developes the wonders of steam and electricity in the order of Nature. But He doth not assign to substances qualities foreign to their

> Contra Celsum, Lib. iii. p. 130. Such also is the language of Ire

næus; "Secundum utilitates hominum, sed non ad seductionem perfecit." Adv. Hæres. Lib. ii. c. 57, p. 219.

nature. Hence I regard with distrust such miracles as that assigned to S. John, of converting rods into gold.

"Generally, Miracles," says Dr. Jackson, "were usual in the infancy of Christianity, as we read in Ecclesiastical stories: nor can it be certainly gathered when they did generally cease. To say they endured no longer than the Primitive Church can give no universal satisfaction, save only to such as think it enough for all the world to have the light of the Gospel locked up in the chancel of some one glorious church: for some Churches were but in the prime or change, when others were full of Christian knowledge. The use of miracles at the same instant was befitting the one, not the other."

I conclude with S. Augustine; "Albeit then the marvels of visible nature may have become cheap by the constant

Vol. I. p. 45.-He particularly classes as supernatural certain dreams in the early history of the Franks and Saxons. The fiery eruption which obstructed the rebuilding of the Temple at Jerusalem under Julian has found believers among those who are disposed to reject ecclesiastical miracles. The case of the Confessors of Tipasa, whose tongues were cut off in the persecution of the African Catholics under Hunneric, A.D. 488, and who continued to speak without tongues, should be added. "This miracle," writes Gibbon, "is attested by Victor, an African bishop, who published a history of the persecution within two years after the event. At Constantinople we are astonished to find a cool, a learned, and unexceptionable witness, without interest, and without passion. Æneas of Gaza, a Platonic philosopher, has accurately described his own observations on these African sufferers. I saw them myself: I heard them speak: I diligently inquired by what means such an articulate voice could be formed without any organ of speech: I used my eyes to examine the report of my ears I opened their mouth, and saw that the whole tongue had been completely torn away by the roots;

an operation which the physicians generally suppose to be mortal.' The testimony of Æneas of Gaza might be confirmed by the superfluous evidence of the Emperor Justinian, in a perpetual edict; of Count Marcellinus, in his Chronicle of the times; and of Pope Gregory the First, who had resided at Constantinople, as the minister of the Roman Pontiff. They all lived within the compass of a century; and they all appeal to their personal knowledge, or the public notoriety, for the truth of a miracle, which was repeated in several instances, displayed on the greatest theatre of the world, and submitted, during a series of years, to the calm examination of the senses." (Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. 37, Vol. iv. p. 434.) But observe how Tertullian argues against the possibility of such an occurrence: "An omnino credibile sit, tali membro desecto, vastato ipsius animæ organo, et utique radicitus cæso, castratis faucibus, quæ etiam extrinsecus periculosè vulnerantur, exinde tabo in præcordia refluente, postremò aliquamdiu cessantibus alimentis, vitam nutrici perdurasse?" (Ad Nationes, Lib. I. c. 8.)

seeing thereof; yet, when we look at them with judgment, they are greater than the most unusual and most rare. For Man too is a greater marvel than any marvel wrought by man. Wherefore GOD, Who made heaven and earth visible, doth not disdain to work visible miracles in heaven or on earth, whereby He may excite the soul still given up to visible things to worship Him the Invisible. But when and where He doeth them, the unchangeable design is in His power, in Whose disposal times to come are already accomplished." I will add, that although such miracles as the crowning one of the Resurrection of CHRIST and His authentic works be infallible proofs' to the believer, they are external to Faith, which witnesses to things not seen.' Absolute proofs would convert Faith into Science. The evidence which convinced S. Thomas was not required by S. John, and would not have converted Judas. The history of Christianity and the existence of Israel as a nation without a Fatherland now supply 'proofs' unattainable in the ages when local 'miracles occurred.

a

De Civitate Dei, Lib. x. c. 12, Tom. VII. p. 249.

320

Of God's dealings with his Elect, viewed abstractedly.

CHAPTER XVIII.

OF PREDESTINATION.

§. 1. HAVING treated of the Catholic Church as the visible home of GoD's Elect children in CHRIST, we come next to examine the invisible dealings of Gop with His Elect, viewed abstractedly and antecedently to consideration of any visible, external, or sacramental modes, whereby those eternal facts are manifested or made known to us in time. Without pretending to separate them from those conditions, accompanied by which we in point of fact are acquainted with them, nor tying them rigidly to those conditions excluding all other, it will be sufficient to notice, that, as we sometimes distinguish the Elect from the Catholic Church without intending to insinuate that they are in fact a separate class, but rather the true spiritual essence of the Catholic Church; so we may discuss separately the abstract spiritual facts of Predestination, Election, Justification, and Sanctification, without denying that Baptism is the Sacrament of Justification, and the Eucharist that of Sanctification. For if to be justified is to have the Blood of the Eternal Victim the Lamb of GoD applied to the purifying both of body and soul, how shall it be denied that That Blood is applied in holy Baptism, "that He might sanctify and cleanse (the Church) with the washing of water by the word?" Or, again, how shall it be denied. that Justification, as a spiritual fact, though coincident with Baptism duly received, yet covers more ground? inasmuch as it is not only a past but also a present fact, applicable not only in Baptism, but in Penance, or in inward Contrition, or in the Eucharist, as long as ever the Atoning Blood may be

Eph. v. 26.